This invention relates generally to toys, and particularly to an improved toy oven in which a child may safely bake many varieties of foods "just like mother's" but on a much reduced scale.
As they are growing up, many children accompany their mothers or fathers in the kitchen while they are preparing food for the family. Oftentimes, the child wants to participate with the parent or perhaps an older sibling in preparing such foods. However, due to the nature of the baking process, it is not usually safe for a small child to participate in such activities since there is a very great danger of the child coming in contact with a hot cooking or baking surface. Accordingly, there is a need for a toy to allow the child to express creativity and attain the satisfaction of having completed a desired baking or cooking task. the instant invention is aimed at satisfying just such a need.
It is known in the toy field to produce an oven for use by a child. U.S. Pat. No. 3,368,063 to Kuhn, also assigned to the assignee of this disclosure, discloses a toy oven for baking foods that includes a baking chamber and a cooling chamber disposed side by side, with openings in the walls of the baking and cooling chambers to provide a substantially horizontally aligned passageway through both chambers. The passageway contains opposed tracks to slidably support a baking pan so that pans can be moved successively through the baking chamber, the cooling chamber and out of the toy by inserting a pan into the baking chamber, thereby pushing the pan already in the baking chamber to the cooling chamber. The Kuhn oven utilizes two light bulbs located in the baking chamber, one each above and below the passageway, to create radiant heat for baking the food contained in the ovens. The instant device is an improvement thereover, and utilizes but one light bulb and an improved oven structure to significantly reduce the time required for baking.
Therefore, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a miniature but fully operative oven that is as safe as possible for a child to operate.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a toy oven which is more efficient in its use of electricity and at the same time greatly reduces the time required for baking.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a toy oven which is sufficiently insulated and vented so that there is no danger of a child being burned by touching any of the exposed parts of the oven, even though the oven may be small compared to conventional ovens.
Yet a further object of the present invention is to provide a toy oven in which provision is made for heating the food to be baked in a separate insulated compartment and in which provision is further made for cooling the pans in which the food is baked to a safe temperature within the confines of the toy oven prior to its being made readily accessible to the child using the oven.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toy oven that can easily be operated by a child.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a toy oven in which the average child can produce excellent baked products with very little instruction using either ready-mixed foods or individual recipes.